A protest against the Keystone XL pipeline / credit: John Englart, Creative Commons
After more than a decade of grassroots organizing, agitation and tireless opposition by the international climate movement, the final nail was slammed into the Keystone XL’s coffin Wednesday afternoon when the company behind the transnational tar sands pipeline officially pulled the plug on its plans.
Following consultation with Canadian officials and regulators—including “its partner, the Government of Alberta”—TC Energy confirmed its “termination” of the project in a statement citing the revocation of a federal U.S. permit by President Joe Biden on his first day in office on January 20 as the leading reason.
Climate campaigners, however, were immediate in claiming a final victory after years of struggle against the company and its backers both in Washington, D.C., and Ottawa.
“TC Energy just confirmed what we already knew but it’s a thrilling reality all the same—the Keystone XL pipeline is no more and never will be,” said David Turnbull, strategic communications director with Oil Change International (OCI).
OMG! It’s official. We took on a multi-billion dollar corporation and we won!!
— Dallas Goldtooth (@dallasgoldtooth) June 9, 2021
“After more than 10 years of organizing we have finally defeated an oil giant, Keystone XL is dead!” declared the Indigenous Environmental Network (IEN) in reaction. “We are dancing in our hearts because of this victory! From Dene territories in Northern Alberta to Indigenous lands along the Gulf of Mexico, we stood hand-in-hand to protect the next seven generations of life, the water and our communities from this dirty tar sands pipeline. And that struggle is vindicated.”
IEN said that the win over TC Energy and its supporters was “not the end—but merely the beginning of further victories,” and also reminded the world that there are “still frontline Indigenous water protectors like Oscar High Elk who face charges for standing against the Keystone XL pipeline.”
Calling the news “yet another huge moment in an historic effort,” Turnbull at OCI said that while the Canadian company’s press statement failed to admit it, “this project is finally being abandoned thanks to more than a decade of resistance from Indigenous communities, landowners, farmers, ranchers, and climate activists along its route and around the world.”
Jared Margolis, a senior attorney at the Center for Biological Diversity, declared the victory in the drawn-out battle—which largely took place under the Democratic administration of former President Barack Obama—”a landmark moment in the fight against the climate crisis.”
“We need to keep moving away from dirty, dangerous pipelines that lock us into an unsustainable future,” added Margolis, who said he now hopes President Joe Biden will take this lesson and apply to other polluting fossil projects. “We’re hopeful that the Biden administration will continue to shift this country in the right direction by opposing fossil fuel projects that threaten our climate, our waters and imperiled wildlife,” he said. “Good riddance to Keystone XL!”
Jamie Henn and Bill McKibben, both co-founders of 350.org and key architects of the decision to make the Keystone XL pipeline a target and symbol of the global climate movement, also heralded the news.
“When this fight began, people thought Big Oil couldn’t be beat,” said McKibben, who was among those arrested outside the White House in 2011 protesting the pipeline.
“Keystone XL is now the most famous fossil fuel project killed by the climate movement, but it won’t be the last,” said Henn. “The same coalition that stopped this pipeline is now battling Line 3 and dozens of other fossil fuel projects across the country. Biden did the right thing on KXL, now it’s time to go a step further and say no to all new fossil fuel projects everywhere.”
Clayton Thomas Muller, another longtime KXL opponent and currently a senior campaigns specialist at 350.org in Canada, said: “This victory is thanks to Indigenous land defenders who fought the Keystone XL pipeline for over a decade. Indigenous-led resistance is critical in the fight against the climate crisis and we need to follow the lead of Indigenous peoples, particularly Indigenous women, who are leading this fight across the continent and around the world. With Keystone XL cancelled, it’s time to turn our attention to the Indigenous-led resistance to the Line 3 and the Trans Mountain tar sands pipelines.”
McKibben also made the direct connection to KXL and the decision now looming before Biden when it comes to Line 3 in northern Minnesota. “When enough people rise up we’re stronger even than the richest fossil fuel companies,” he said. “And by the way, the same climate test that ruled out Keystone should do the same for Line 3.”
Women in the Rhino Refugee Camp in Urua, Uganda. Developing countries have been relying on developed countries’ financing to help them adapt to and mitigate climate-change effects / credit: Ninno JackJr on Unsplash
With its climate pact and a climate law, the European Union is often viewed as progressive when it comes to dealing with the climate crisis. But positions that both EU countries and the EU bloc have taken in the run-up to the 26th Conference of Parties (COP26), the largest annual climate-change conference, paint a different picture.
At a workshop held in June, the EU proposed an end to discussions on long-term climate finance. The workshop was part of Sessions of the Subsidiary Bodies, a set of meetings under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC).
“The [work] program was to come to an end in 2020, not the agenda item of long-term finance,” said Zaheer Fakir, one of the lead coordinators for the African Group of Negotiators on Climate Change (AGN). Fakir, of South Africa, co-facilitated the workshop. “But developed countries in the EU and the U.S. are reluctant to continue these discussions,” he added.
The work program on long-term finance was first launched at COP17 in 2011. As part of the program, parties decided on a host of actions, such as the sessions and convening biannually to continue dialogues on climate finance until 2020.
At the workshop, many developing countries—African ones in particular—opposed the EU proposal as a violation of the Paris Agreement’s principles of equity. Representatives from the small African country of Gabon stressed the need to continue discussions on long-term finance given how the goal of mobilizing $100 billion per year by 2020 remains unmet.
Climate finance is considered a key tool to help developing countries adapt to a changing climate by developing coastal defense mechanisms or drought-resistant crops. This funding also helps countries take action to mitigate the effects, such as by scaling up the renewable energy sector. And as Toward Freedom previously reported, developed countries are falling short in fulfilling their financial obligations and sometimes are adding to the debt burdens of developing countries.
Fakir said these discussions on long-term finance are the “only real, substantial financial discussions under the Convention [UNFCCC].” He also added the work program was one of a kind because it included a variety of stakeholders, like parties to UNFCCC and development banks.
“Discussions on long-term finance cannot be shut down as long as developing countries are required to implement climate actions to achieve Paris Agreement goals,” said Meena Raman, a Malaysia-based legal advisor and senior researcher at the Third World Network (TWN), a nonprofit international research and advocacy organization focusing on Global North-South affairs.
Discussions on long-term climate finance are set to be held during COP26. Meanwhile, the EU, the COP26 presidency and the UNFCCC have not responded to questions.
African Group of Negotiators Lead Coordinators Strategy meeting, African Roadmap for Climate Action, held in March 2020 in Libreville, Gabon. African countries have rejected the EU’s proposal to end discussions on long-term climate financing.
A Showdown Over Net-Zero Terms
In the first week of October, a dispute broke out at the 30th meeting of the board members of the Green Climate Fund (GCF). GCF was established in 2010 as a financing vehicle that would help developing countries address climate-change needs.
The re-accreditation of the Development Bank of Southern Africa (DBSA) to the GCF fell through because GCF board member Lars Roth required the DBSA accept net-zero targets, according to TWN’s account of the meeting. Roth is affiliated with the Swedish Ministry for Foreign Affairs.
Green Climate Fund board member Lars Roth, who the Third World Network reports was trying to prevent an African bank’s re-accreditation by demanding more stringent climate terms. Roth said the group simply ran out of time to re-accredit the bank.
“Institutions like DBSA are key to the southern African region in terms of implementing their NDCs [nationally determined contributions under the Paris Agreement],” Fakir said.
However, TWN reported Roth tried to impose conditions on GCF members like a long-term net-zero target by the year 2050, an intermediate net-zero target for 2030, as well as shifts in overall investment and loan policies away from fossil fuels.
Board members from developing countries objected to these conditions.
Roth told this reporter the main reason DBSA was not re-accredited is the GCF board wasted time on “procedural discussions.” The bank’s re-accreditation was the final item on the meeting’s agenda. “We ran out of time to iron out remaining differences,” Roth said.
But Roth wanted the DBSA re-accreditation to be postponed irrespective of the substance of the discussions, said AGN advisor Richard Sherman. He added Roth’s was a deliberate move to put pressure on the DBSA to make a public statement regarding net zero and fossil-fuel investments.
Sherman also added the GCF board’s policy for accreditation and re-accreditation does not include any provisions “beyond an expectation that the portfolio of the entity would evolve and it does not provide any guidance on how to measure such a shift.” In essence, the provisions do not require net-zero commitments and fossil-fuel phaseouts.
The GCF did not respond to whether net-zero commitments are necessary for accreditation purposes.
This issue also shines light on the heart of the problem. That developing countries are expected to show greater ambition on climate action, while not being provided with the support to execute.
Article 2 of the Paris Agreement speaks of “equity and the principle of common but differentiated responsibilities and respective capabilities, in the light of different national circumstances.” This means each country is required to take action aligned with its historical responsibilities and current capabilities. The entire African continent has contributed only 3 percent to cumulative emissions since the Industrial Revolution, as opposed to the EU, which has contributed 22 percent.
The proposal to not re-accredit DBSA could be considered discrimination and therefore not in line with the Paris Agreement. The other issue is banks like DBSA that finance projects in developing countries are core to both their general infrastructure needs as well as a just transition away from fossil fuels.
“One of the key achievements of developing countries in the GCF process was having direct access modality,” Fakir explained. Here, “direct access modality” refers to the possibility of national and regional institutions (institutions other than the UN and World Bank) to be accredited to the GCF to act as vehicles to finance climate-related projects across developing countries. DBSA is one such institution. Therefore, the decision to not re-accredit the bank will impact a pipeline of projects across southern Africa.
“How will these countries transition [into clean-energy economies]?” Fakir asked.
Morocco’s Noor Midelt solar power project, which Germany primarily funded / NS Energy
Lack of Finance Becomes a Barrier In Africa
All of the above detailed issues played out in the context of grave climate-driven disasters across Africa and increasing adaptation costs, which would require more GCF financing than ever before.
A new paper points to how climate finance from developed countries is heavily skewed towards mitigation despite Africa’s climate adaptation costs totalling around $7 to 15 (USD) billion per year and rising. Yet, the paper states that finance targeting mitigation was almost double that for adaptation.
The paper also highlights only 46 percent of financial commitments toward climate-adaptation measures are distributed. “If you want to have an impact on the ground, funding has to reach the communities on the ground,” said Georgia Savvidou, a researcher at Chalmers University of Technology in Sweden and the paper’s lead author.
The fund flows also are not in line with the Paris Agreement, which states countries should balance climate finance between mitigation and adaptation. Early this year even the UNSG stated 50 percent of climate finance should be towards adaptation.
“Around 60 percent of GCF financing, if not more, is directed towards mitigation,” Fakir noted. This despite GCF’s mandate to invest 50 percent of its resources to mitigation and 50 percent to adaptation. And even within such allocation, the fund is mandated to invest at least half of its adaptation resources in the most climate vulnerable countries like African states and least developed countries.
The paper also points to how the disproportionate mitigation financing is linked to European funding sources. In northern Africa, where 83 percent of finance commitments were directed to mitigation, around 65 percent of such funding originated from European donors, which includes two banks and the countries of France and Germany.
The authors suggest self-interest drives such financing:
“One mega-project in Morocco financed primarily by Germany accounts for 26 percent of the region’s total mitigation finance: The Noor Midelt Solar Power Project is one of the world’s largest solar projects to combine hybrid concentrated solar power and photovoltaic solar. Morocco’s proximity to Europe means it could potentially export significant amounts of renewable power northwards, and in doing so help Europe to achieve its climate neutrality targets.”
To de-link donor interest in bilateral climate funding, the authors suggest direct access modalities like Adaptation Fund and GCF as one option. “These funds are better at reaching the most vulnerable countries,” Savvidou said. But, as laid out above, the integrity of GCF processes remains in question.
Rishika Pardikar is a freelance journalist in Bangalore, India.
Marize Guarani, president of Aldeia Maracanã, an Indigenous collective based in Rio de Janeiro, in her neighborhood located in the periferia, or outskirts, of the city / credit: Antonio Cascio
BRASILIA, Brazil—Despite hoping for change under the new Brazilian government, Marize Guarani remembers unfulfilled promises from Lula’s first term in office.
“One thing you can be sure of is that over the next four years, we will be on the streets demanding our rights,” said Guarani, a history professor and president of Aldeia Maracanã, an Indigenous collective based in Rio de Janeiro. (In Brazil, Indigenous people take the name of their people as their surname.)
The victory of Luiz Inácio “Lula” da Silva during the presidential run-off election on October 30 has inspired many sectors of Brazilian society. The sentiment is mirrored internationally, with expectations that Lula’s plan will reverse four years of devastating Amazon deforestation that took place under former President Jair Bolsonaro. According to the Inpe (National Institute for Space Research), during Bolsonaro’s term, the annual average of deforestation was 11,500 square kilometers—or the size of the country of Qatar—in comparison to 7,500 square kilometers under his predecessor.
However, for the first time in Brazilian history, representatives of Indigenous communities have been placed in positions of state power. Brazil will not only have a ministry of Indigenous affairs, but that government body will be led by an Indigenous leader, Sonia Guajajara.
“Today, the Indigenous protagonism within Lula’s government is completely different to his first term in office,” said Elaine Moreira, anthropologist professor and coordinator of the Observatory of Indigenist Rights and Politics project at the University of Brasilia. “Today, it is not possible to govern the country without [Indigenous peoples].”
Brazilians watch Luiz Inácio “Lula” da Silva speak on a large screen at the January 1 inauguration held in the center of Brasilia / credit: Antonio Cascio
Joy on Inauguration Day
Among the thousands of people who traveled hundreds of kilometers to support Lula during his January 1 inauguration were Indigenous leaders and representatives of communities from all over the country. Hundreds of tents were pitched on December 31 in the Mané Garrincha Stadium in Brasilia, where they celebrated New Year’s Eve. The following day, an estimated 160,000 people mostly dressed in red shirts—the color of Lula’s Workers’ Party—attended the Festival do Futuro (Future Festival). The event was organized to commemorate the shift in power.
“For me, it is priceless to be here,” Vice-Chief Sarapó told Toward Freedom. His name means “Defender of Nature.”
During the celebration, people watched on screens as Lula took the helm. Thousands of Lula supporters danced as a variety of Brazilian artists performed on stage.
“After so much persecution of President Lula, we won the election. That is why Lula is like our Indigenous brother,” added Sarapó, who represented more than 5,000 Pankararú people, who live in the northeastern state of Pernambuco.
Indigenous chiefs took part in Festival do Futuro (Future Festival) on January 1. They made the gesture with their hands that represents support for President Luiz Inácio “Lula” da Silva / credit: Antonio Cascio
In 2017, Lula was convicted of corruption charges and spent 18 months in prison before a Supreme Court judge annulled the charges, clearing him to run for office.
After Bolsonaro fled the country in what many have seen as an attempt to avoid prosecution for violations during his term, 77-year-old Lula received the inaugural sash from a group of people representing the diversity of Brazilian society. Environmental activist and Indigenous leader Raoni Metuktire of the Kayapo people walked by his side during the symbolic act. Raoni is internationally known for his life-long defense of the Amazon, as well as for his distinctive yellow feather headdress and lip plate. He is one of the last members of his community to use the lip accessory.
The Brasilia Stadium transformed into a tent camp for Lula’s supporters, who traveled from all over Brazil to attend the inauguration / credit: Antonio Cascio
Restructuring Institutions with the Participation of Indigenous Peoples
On January 3, Indigenous leaders and government representatives took part in a symbolic takeover of the Foundation of Indigenous Peoples (Funai). For the first time since the body was created in 1967, an Indigenous person will serve as its president. The Funai’s main responsibilities are defending Indigenous rights, demarcating their territories and protecting the environment within Indigenous lands.
Guajajara, plus Joenia Wapichana as president of the Funai, Célia Xakriabá as federal deputy for the Brazilian state of Minas Gerais and Weibe Tapeba as head of the Special Secretariat for Indigenous Health (SESAI) said they constitute a solid bloc to defend the rights of Indigenous peoples.
“We three seated at this table, occupying strategic places in the institutional politics of the Brazilian state, represent the unity within the Indigenous movement,” Tapeda said at the event.
The room filled with mixed emotion as Indigenous leaders took turns speaking. At times, people hugged and celebrated a hopeful future. At other moments, they shed tears over what they see as four years of anti-Indigenous policy that led to the suffering and deaths of their peoples.
Some, including Lula, have accused Bolsonaro of genocide against the Yanomami people, who are experiencing a malnutrition and malaria crisis that has been linked to the former president’s pro-mining policy and a lack of healthcare.
“We had never suffered as much persecution as in the last four years,” Guajajara said during the event. “A persecution that, on top of everything, came from the same institution that was supposed to protect us.”
From left: Chief Raoni Metuktire, Sonia Guajajara and Joenia Wapichana raise their hands together to celebrate Brazilian Indigenous communities taking over the Funai (National Foundation of the Indigenous People), on January 2 / credit: Antonio Cascio
Ensuring Environmental Protection
Lula’s government will face many obstacles with a congress in which the opposition is in the majority. Agribusiness and mining are key industries in Brazil and remain an important lobby in Congress.
Yet, Lula’s promises to center impacted people in his cabinet already have born fruit in the form of a social budget for 2023 that amounts to 145 billion reais ($27.9 billion). This would enable the government to comply with programs, such as subsidies for the most vulnerable sectors of society, increasing the minimum wage, and improving education and the healthcare system. However, questions have arisen about guaranteeing sufficient resources for all departments. Brazil’s economy faces high inflation and interest rates.
Lula’s government has planned to move toward a zero-deforestation economy.
“A solution to climate change does not exist without understanding the contribution that we Indigenous peoples make,” Xakriabá told Toward Freedom.
Célia Xabriabà, representative of the Brazilian state of Minas Gerais, receives applause on January 2 after her speech in support of the struggle of Indigenous peoples at during a ceremony commemorating Indigenous people taking over the FUNAI (National Foundation of the Indigenous People). To her left is Weibe Tapeba, the new head of the Special Secretariat for Indigenous Health (SESAI) / credit: Antonio Cascio
The Ministry of Environment has agreed to create trans-institutional mechanisms that communicate with the Ministry of Indigenous Affairs and all sectors.
“The fact that we have today a Ministry of Indigenous Affairs will affect directly the Ministry of Environment,” said anthropologist Moreira. “Especially in connection to recovering degraded lands invaded by illegal logging, but particularly by illegal mining.”
Gold mining increased 3,350 percent in the last four years, according to “Yanomami Under Attack,” a report that social services organization Hutukara Associação Yanomami released. That spike has been attributed to Bolsonaro’s decree to stimulate gold mining in the Amazon.
Bolsonaro also dismantled and militarized the Funai and other institutions that protected Indigenous communities and the environment. For example, he promoted deforestation to benefit agribusiness. In December, deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon was 150 percent higher than the previous year, according to the national space research agency, INPE. According to a report that environmental-news portal Mongabay cited, 250,000 hectares (620,000 acres) have been lost to private companies. Plus, Bolsonaro stopped Indigenous land demarcation.
However, under Lula, decrees that allowed “artisanal” gold mining on Indigenous land as well as the sale of Indigenous lands farmers had invaded, already have been revoked. The federal police and the Brazilian Institute of Environment (Ibama) will remove illegal gold miners from the Yanomami territories in the Amazonian region, Guajajara was quoted as saying to the journal, Estadão.
Indigenous Chief Junior Xukuru, advisor to the presidency of the CONAFER (National Confederation of Family Farmers and Rural Family Entrepreneurs), makes the gesture with his hand that represents support for President Luiz Inácio “Lula” da Silva. He is pictured at the Brasilia Stadium’s tent camp, which was organized for people who traveled from all over Brazil to attend Lula’s inauguration / credit: Antonio Cascio
Confidence in Lula
Chief Merong Kamacã Mongoió, who made a 12-hour journey from the Brazilian state of Minas Gerais to commemorate Lula’s inauguration, said he is confident the Ministry of Indigenous Affairs will defend the interest of Indigenous communities over big industries.
“We also contribute to the country. We have family agriculture and agroforestry plantations,” said Chief Merong, whose community is in a land dispute with the mining giant, Vale. “What we do not want is mining, soya expansion, or transgenic plantations in our country.”
Indigenous leaders see land titling as the basis for ending the environmental crisis.
“The struggle to defend Mother Earth is the mother of all struggles,” Tapeda said during the event at the Funai. “We need to restart territorial demarcation now.”
Chief Junior of the Xuhurú people traveled from the state of Pernambuco, almost 2,000 kilometers from the capital. Like many others, he camped out.
“The most important matter at the moment for Indigenous peoples in Brazil is the need for land demarcation. To end logging and mining in our territories, and to expel the settlers that are there today usurping our land and washing it with Indigenous blood.”
Wapichana, Funai’s new president, asked in an interview with Toward Freedom for the public to be patient as the new group of Indigenous officials reorganize the institution.
“Through this union, we will demonstrate how it is to administer from an Indigenous vision.”
Natalia Torres Garzón graduated with an M.Sc. in Globalization and Development at the School of Oriental and African Studies in London, United Kingdom. She is a freelance journalist who focuses on social and political issues in Latin America, especially in connection to Indigenous communities, women, and the environment. Her work has been published in Earth Island, New Internationalist, Toward Freedom, the section of Planeta Futuro-El País, El Salto, Esglobal and others.
Antonio Cascio is an Italian photojournalist focused on social movements, environmental justice and discriminated groups. He has been working as a freelancer from Europe and Latin America. He has also collaborated with news agencies like Reuters, Sopa Images and Abacapress, and his pictures have been published in the New York Times, CNN, BBC, the Guardian, DW, Mongabay, El País, Revista 5W, Liberation, Infobae, Folha de S.Paulo, Amnesty International and others.
Hundreds of thousands around the world marched on November 6 as COP26 was underway, including this march in Glasgow, Scotland, where the conference is taking place / credit: Oliver Kornblihtt
GLASGOW, Scotland—Speaking at the 26th Conference of Parties (COP26) on November 1, U.S. President Joe Biden said he wants the United States to commit $3 billion toward helping vulnerable countries adapt to climate change. But the administration’s climate negotiators in Glasgow are pushing to keep adaptation financing inadequate.
Delegations from more than 190 countries are deliberating on issues that weren’t resolved in the first week of COP26, the largest annual climate-change conference organized under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). Climate finance to assist developing countries adapt to a changing world and carbon markets to trade emission reduction credits remain on the table.
At a November 9 closed-door negotiation meeting, the United States asked for a revision of references on adaptation finance’s inadequacy, as well as the request to double adaptation finance. This comes despite Biden having publicly spoken of quadrupling U.S. climate-finance contributions.
Early this year, the United Nations Environment Program (UNEP) noted adaptation costs in developing countries are “five to 10 times greater than current public adaptation finance flows.” The UNEP also said the adaptation finance gap is “widening.”
But developed countries like the United States, Canada and those in the European Union resisted the adoption of language that would have called for doubling adaptation finance.
Developing Countries Take Offense
According to an observer who was present in the negotiation room, Egyptian negotiators expressed they found it difficult to understand why developed countries find the term “doubling” offensive. Meanwhile, Bangladeshi delegates said in the same meeting that doubling should be replaced with “quadrupling.” Bangladesh is uniquely vulnerable to the impacts of climate change, given how sea-level rise threatens to drown large sections of the country.
Plus, a few days ago, the chair of the UNFCCC’s Subsidiary Body for Implementation allowed informal consultations on the composition of the Adaptation Fund’s board at the behest of the United States.
The Adaptation Fund was formed under the Kyoto Protocol, an international climate treaty designed to help developing countries adapt to a quickly warming world.
According to delegates of developing countries and observers in negotiation rooms at COP26, the United States plans to make a pledge to the Fund on the condition that non-Kyoto Protocol parties are allowed to be elected to the Board and that the Board composition be changed to equal representation between developed and developing countries.
A U.S. State Department representative who speaks on behalf of U.S. negotiators at COP26 declined to comment.
Liane Schalatek, associate director of Heinrich Böll Stiftung, a German foundation based in Washington, D.C., noted how the Adaptation Fund is the only climate fund that has “equitable representation” on its board. Currently, developing countries hold two-thirds of board seats.
Tarun Gopalakrishnan, pre-doctoral fellow at the Tufts University’s Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy in Massachusetts, said the Adaptation Fund’s board comprises strong representation from developing, least developed and highly vulnerable countries.
“More finance should be welcome, but [the board’s] uniqueness should not be diluted,” Gopalakrishnan added.
Other dedicated climate funds like the Green Climate Fund (GCF) and Climate Investment Fund (CIF) have equal representation between developed and developing countries. Because decisions are made by consensus, opinions of both groups carry equal weight.
Even with respect to multilateral development banks’ climate funding, developed countries have decision making power, Schalatek explained. Multilateral development banks include the World Bank and the Asian Development Bank.
Schalatek said it is clear the “Adaptation Fund is a better option”, adding that developing countries have a better sense of their needs and priorities and how funding could be channeled to local communities and organizations in the most effective manner.
‘Money As the Stick’
The other issue is the United States only wants control via the Kyoto Protocol, but not the responsibilities.
Since the United States failed to ratify the Kyoto Protocol, it is currently not eligible to hold a board seat. But now, it wants a board seat without committing to the emission reduction that Kyoto parties had agreed to undertake.
“The U.S. is using the money as the stick,” said a delegate from a developing country. The delegate chose to remain anonymous out of fear of reprisal. They added the United States is offering a one-time contribution of $50 million, which is about half of what Germany gives every year to the Adaptation Fund.
Delegations from developing countries worry if the United States gets a seat on the Adaptation Board, approvals for climate projects in countries like Cuba could be withheld because of geopolitical reasons.
This reporter sent questions to the Adaptation Fund, but they did not respond.
More broadly, Gopalakrishnan noted adaptation finance has been inadequate because of political and technical reasons.
“Recognizing this in a [COP26] decision is the first step to fixing the problem.”
This article was developed with support from Internews’ Earth Journalism Network and the Stanley Center for Peace and Security as part of the Climate Change Media Partnership (CCMP) Program.
Rishika Pardikar is a freelance journalist in Bangalore, India.
